


In me all that fire is repeated

by ExpatGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms, Battle Sigils, Castiel's True Form, Established Relationship, Hugs, M/M, Pillow Talk, Post-Mark of Cain, Post-Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:20:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is, essentially, a long discussion on angelic true forms, philosophy and love. These two have the worst pillow talk, I swear. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In me all that fire is repeated

**Author's Note:**

> _I'm obsessed with angelic true forms. Generally, and especially in the world of Supernatural. I don't think the show goes far enough to remind the audience how outside of humanity angels actually are. All other monsters on the show were human once (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, etc) or have human-like needs (Leviathans need to feed, for example). Like humans, Supernatural's monsters are largely of the earth. But angels? Ah, angels. There is nothing remotely earthly about them, not at first. So while I love watching them--particularly Cas--learn to deal with this seismic shift in their lives, I like to remember that they may be IN our world but they are not and never will be fully OF our world. Nor should they be expected to be! Why should they be forced to assimilate, to lose their innate wildness? Where's the excitement there?_   
>  _Anyway, I didn't actually mean this to be Dean/Cas, but dammit, it just kind of happened. I also couldn't think of a title, so I quoted a Pablo Neruda poem._   
>    
>  _I hope you enjoy. If there are any typos, please tell me so that I can fix them!_   
>  _**Edited to Add:** In a moment of serendipity, I came across [this gorgeous artwork](http://celebrusc.tumblr.com/image/96671108739) by Celebrusc on tumblr, and the wings are almost identical to what I had in mind when I thought of this. Must be fate!_

“So, Cas.....”

“Mmm?”

“What do you look like?”

“I’m...not sure what you mean. You can see very well what I look like, Dean.” Cas looked from his own bare feet to his chest, and then back at Dean, squinting in evident confusion.

“No, I mean, you know...what do you—” and here Dean made some vague gestures with his free hand, frowning a little in frustration “ _look like_? Like, your true form? You’ve never actually said, other than saying it’s as a big as the Sears Tower.”

“Chrysler Building.”

“What?”

“It’s the size of the Chrysler Building. Roughly. Not the Sears Tower, which is much taller. That’s a nice compliment, though.”

“Alright, fine, my famous skyscraper metaphor was a little off,” Dean said, with an affectionate eye-roll. “Don’t deflect.”

“I’m not deflecting. I’m just not sure how to answer you.” Cas let his head fall back against the pillow to gaze toward the ceiling. He didn’t speak for several minutes, and Dean began to think that was the end of the conversation. He started to worry that he’d unintentionally brought up a sore subject.

“You’re familiar with the concept of the sublime?” Cas asked, at last.

“The band, or the idea of something being really awesome?”

“The second,” Cas said. He was smiling a little now, easing Dean’s earlier anxiety. “And that’s actually a more fitting descriptor than you realize.”

“Yeah? You’re saying you’re awesome, huh?”

“Well, yes.” Seeing Dean’s amusement, he added: “Awesome in the classical sense, I mean. Inspiring a feeling of awe. Or perhaps...awful.”  Something  flickered across his face, then, like a shadowy shape rising momentarily from bright water. “Perhaps ‘awful’ is a better word to describe me.”

“Cas...”

“In the classical sense.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean was eager to move away from whatever thought process had caused that look, and ran his hand fondly through Cas’ dark hair. “So, you were saying, about the concept of the sublime....”

“Yes, right. Something sublime surpasses human understanding. It’s so beautiful, or it... it possesses some greatness that is so intense that you become unable to bear it. It causes terror, or death. For humans.”

Dean considered that quietly for a few moments. “That’s what happened to Pam, huh?”

He said it mostly to himself, without any bite.  But he felt Cas flinch, and regretted voicing the thought.

“Dean, I _begged_ her not to look at me. I knew—“

“Shhh, no, I know. I’m not saying you did anything wrong. Man, we were the dumbasses who asked her to call out a supernatural creature we knew _literally nothing_ about. That’s not on you.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Cas said. He didn’t sound completely certain, but he pressed on with his explanation. “And yes, that’s partly what happened to Pam. If she’d looked even a few seconds longer she would have died.”

“Partly?” Dean moved around so he could look at Cas more closely, to watch the minute expressions that moved across his face. He’d known him long enough to understand that any emotion that wasn’t righteous fury or smiting wrath would be invisible to most people. But Dean wasn’t most people. The wrath and the fury—well, Cas was an angel and those were the only things he’d been allowed to feel, and so he unleashed them full-force, even now. They were like enormous roaring waves, sweeping away all before them. But the quieter emotions, the difficult and nuanced ones, those were different. They were like currents deep in the ocean, great roiling rivers below the surface, shaping the seabed and controlling the weather. Most people would stand on the shore and see a few ripples, not understanding that they were watching a force that was invisibly, silently changing the world. But Dean was not most people. Where Cas was concerned, he had become an oceanographer.

Doubt ( _Murder One,_ Dean remembered), fear and disappointment ( _No good soldier shows those_ , Dean thought with a bitter pang of recognition): these were all things he had come to know, with some regret, from the twitch of an eyelid muscle or the cant of Castiel’s head. But there were other things, too, other feelings. Happiness.  Trust, affection, tenderness ( _And love, you idiot,_ said an irritated voice in Dean’s head—yes, he supposed, that, too), all the softer offerings of human life had found Cas, as well, and Dean could feel the secret pull of them in every small movement.

So he watched carefully now as Cas continued to look skyward, toward the dim overhead light.

“Partly. An angelic true form is the very _definition_ of sublime, and so it would prove lethal to a human being by sheer dint of being too much to take in. It would be the same with my true voice if I were ever to speak loudly, or shout.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Dean sat up, looking down at Cas skeptically. “So when you found me in that gas station, you _weren’t_ shouting? That was your _inside voice_?” 

Cas gave him a rueful look. “I was practically whispering, Dean. I knew you were in a fragile state and I didn’t want to startle you.”

Dean flopped back on to the bed with a laugh. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

“At the time, I thought you’d be able to hear my true voice. If that were the case, it really would have been quite soothing.”

Dean remembered the explosion of glass, the ear-destroying roar and piercing electric whine that he associated with Castiel’s true voice. He tried to imagine any of it being remotely soothing, and failed. He turned his head to tell Cas as much, but was met with sight of his familiar face, with its gentle expression and intent blue eyes, and the retort died on his tongue.

“Ah well, I like the voice you’ve got now just fine.”

“I’m glad.”

“What were you saying to me, anyway?”

“At the gas station?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Cas looked at him like the answer was obvious.“I was saying what we always say when we first try and talk to humans. I was telling you not to be afraid.”

Dean felt something tighten in his chest at the thought of that, and he didn’t really understand why.

“I don’t know why we were always instructed to say that, you know. It never worked, even when people were better able to hear our true voices. And anyway, people are right to be afraid of us...”

Again Dean felt the subtle sweep of Cas’ emotions pull towards colder, darker waters, and again he gently steered them back toward the shore.

“So your true form and your true voice are both sublime. But what do you actually _look like_? You haven’t mentioned that.”

“Dean, I don’t know if I can truly describe it. Human language lacks the correct adjectives. English especially.”

“I get that, I do. But try anyway.”

Cas looked at him helplessly.  Dean could practically see him scanning through every word of English that he knew and coming up with nothing.

“Okay. Okay, let’s start basic,” Dean said, feeling compelled to help him. “Zachariah said he had a bunch of heads, and one of them was a lion, right?”

“Yes. Multiple heads, in the form of different animals. All angels are tetramorphs, insofar as we have a physical form. Which—we don’t, strictly speaking. Angels are wavelengths, but also...” Cas stopped and rubbed his face with his hand in frustration. “I’m not explaining this very well.”

“Is it like the way light is a particle and a wave at the same time?”

“It’s...yes, actually. It’s similar to that,” Cas said, with a distinct note of surprise in his voice.

“Hey, you don’t need to look so shocked. I occasionally do more online than look at tits.”

Cas had the good grace to at least look abashed at that, and blushed slightly. Dean found this to be a particularly interesting sight, but rallied himself to continue with his line of questioning.

“Okay, so you’re basically a sentient lightbeam with three heads...”

“Four.”

“Four heads. Is one of yours a lion?”

“Of course.” _Obviously_ , was the unspoken addition to the sentence.

“Of course, just checking,” Dean said, feeling tired and slightly overwhelmed suddenly. He let his forehead drop onto Cas’ shoulder, grounding himself in its familiar, solid, human strength.

“Another is a bull, or rather, a creature closely resembling a bull, but much...much uglier, I suppose, and fiercer. And an eagle, or rather....”

“Something resembling an eagle.”

“Yes, though the bird it closest resembles died out millions of years ago. Palaeontologists have yet to dig one up, but I’ll be interested to see what they make of it when they do.” He had a faraway look in his eyes, like he could see spacetime unspooling in front of him like a long shivering ribbon. “So, resembling an eagle, but uglier and fiercer.”

“What’s the fourth?”

“It’s...well, something resembling a human face.”

“But?”

“I am not an attractive creature, Dean.” Cas looked over at him, almost plaintive. “You must understand.  I was not designed to be beautiful; I was designed to be useful in combat.”

“Shut up. Beautiful is subjective.” Dean felt the need to say.

“Still, you’ve seen demons’ true faces, and they are creatures of loveliness compared to angels.”

Dean made an incredulous noise. “Now I _know_ that’s not true. You’re just being self-deprecating.”

“Perhaps hyperbolic, but not self-deprecating. Angels have no sense of our own beauty or ugliness. I’m merely talking in terms of human aesthetics.  We just are as we are and we look as we look.” Cas shrugged, looking thoughtful. “Demons, however, are repulsive, because they _should_ look like human souls, but they don’t, anymore. It’s extremely....distressing to see.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably, and for the first time, let his gaze slide away from Castiel’s face. The Mark had been removed, as much as it could be removed, over a year ago. All that was now left was a sliver of skin slightly paler than the rest and, occasionally, in the dim moments between sleeping and waking, echoes of its bloodlust that jolted him upright like a gunshot. Cas hypothesized that it was similar to the pains from a phantom limb.

He wrenched his eyes back toward Cas now, suddenly desperate to look at him, to reassure himself. No blood, no bruises, no split lip, no broken nose and cracked bone, and no ( _Oh god_ ) heartbroken, resigned look. This, still, after everything, was Dean’s most common nightmare. He had never told Cas this, and he doubted he ever would.

“What’s the matter?” Cas asked, sharpening his focus and turning it, laser-like, toward Dean’s face. Dean wasn’t the only one who’d learned how to pick up on hidden currents of emotion over the years, he reminded himself.

“Nothing, I—“ Dean faltered, and cleared his throat, before continuing. “Uh, I’m just trying to picture it and it’s...”

“Horrifying?”

“Impressive.”

Cas narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

“So, giant lightbeam with four badass animal heads. Wings, obviously.”

“Yes, six.”

“ _Six_? I thought angels only had two.”

“Seraphs have six. We only use two of them to fly.”

“What are the other four of them for, then?”

“To....veil our faces to the Presence.”

“Why would you need to veil your faces? Why would God mind looking at you if He’s the one that decided how you look?”

“No, it isn’t that.” Cas paused. “Or, at least, I don’t _think_ it’s that.” He suddenly sounded a little unsure. “It’s that, just as an angelic true form is to human perception, so the true face of God is to Heavenly creatures. Only four angels have ever seen the face of God, and those were the archangels. They were the only ones who could withstand it.”

“So even if dad came home,  and decided to get all the kids back together again, you’d still never be able to actually look him in the eye?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. But I suspect that He could make Himself visible to us if He actually wanted to. To...to turn down the glare, if you will.”

Dean made a non-committal noise and pressed himself slightly closer to Cas, despite the fact that the summer heat was beginning to insinuate itself into the bunker, in defiance of the vault-thick walls. _He’d_ have a few choice words for the Man Upstairs if He ever decided to show again. Which...unlikely, but you never knew.

“Okay, six wings. Feathers?

“With feathers, though they are also made of fire.”

“Wait, they’re _fire feathers?_ What?”

“No, they’re feathers, on our physical form, and fire, on our non-physical form. They’re both fire and feather at once. Wavelength and particle, remember?”

“Right, of course, how could I forget?” Dean suddenly seized on an idea, but just as suddenly turned shy. He drew in a breath, then let it out, and then repeated the whole process. He’d ask later, he decided.

“Dean, are you _sure_ nothing’s the matter? This is disturbing you; I’ll stop.”

“What? No!” Dean sat up, looking at Cas earnestly. Alright, so that wasn’t entirely true. On some deep, instinctual level ( _Hunter instinct or just human instinct?_ Dean wondered) he found it disturbing, and he supposed he always would. But on another level it was...thrilling. Exhilarating. Here was a firestorm, a hurricane, which had turned its eye toward Dean and said “I am yours and I am never leaving you.” Angels were built for devotion, Dean knew, it was what they were _for_ , but sometimes the thought that _he_ was the focus of it still caught him right in the heart.

“No, I want to hear it. Trust me. I can handle it, and I want to know.” Cas gave him a long, searching look. Was that...was that nervousness?  Uncertainty?  “ Cas, you could be the ugliest bastard in the garrison—which you are not, by the way—and I’d still think you’re awesome. In the non-classical sense.”

 “Alright. So, where was I?”

“Um, four heads, six wings of fire, which are also feathers.”

“Also, thousands of eyes.”

“Thousands of eyes, right. Right.”

“How do you think we know so much? We see into all corners of the Earth and Heaven. Though, of course, things can be hidden from us, or obscured. And Hell is mostly beyond my perception, when I’m not actually down there.” He smiled at some private thought, then added: “They look like stars more than actual eyes, but they are a means of sight.”

“Huh. That’s pretty cool.”

“Well, cool is probably the wrong word. I’m essentially made of fire. Or, something resembling fire, but much hotter. It’s why grace looks white. Angelic fire is much, much hotter than even hellfire, which is red.”

“Really?”

“ _Seraph_ means ‘fiery serpent’, in Hebrew. It’s the closest thing to an accurate description in a language people still know. It’s not remotely big enough, but it will do.” He paused, then looked at Dean. “That’s what happened to Pam, you see. It’s why she burned rather than just dying. That’s what happens when we smite—we turn up the glare, that’s all. That’s all it takes.”

Dean considered this. “So, like, a giant snake made of super-fire, with six wings—which are also fire, but not fire—and a thousand eyes—which are stars but not stars—and four heads—which are like animals but not like animals.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“That’s pretty damn trippy, you know that, right?” Dean said it with fondness, turning his face to the curve of Cas’ neck, but he felt a flutter of anxiety run through the body next to him.

“I told you, Dean, I’m an awful thing. I wasn’t designed to be beautiful...”

“Beautiful nothing, you’re awesome, like you said. You’re telling me that you’re a _fucking dragon_ , dude. An even more badass dragon than any dragon on earth has ever been. That’s better than some chick in a white robe with a harp.”

“It is?”

“ _Yes_.”

Cas visibly relaxed, and Dean got another dose of that angelic-devotion stare that undid him so.

“There’s more. I haven’t told you about the Enochian battle sigils I’ve got, or the way our hands work, or....If you want to hear any of it, that is.”

“I do, I _really_ do. But not right now. I’m kind of exhausted, and Sam is going to be up and clattering around the kitchen in a few hours. I don’t know how it doesn’t wake Claire up, to be honest.”

“Yes, it is rather late. You should sleep.”

“Mmm.”

They fell silent after that, with Dean turning on his side and listening to the deep, even breathing that he knew Cas only did for his benefit. But there was too much pulsing through his brain, too much he was trying to understand and sift through, and sleep evaded him. He kept as still as he could—unnaturally still, he realized a while later when he felt Cas’ hand on his shoulder.

“Dean, what’s wrong? It doesn’t usually take you this long to fall asleep.” Dean felt gentle threads of concern and affection spread out from the warm weight of those five fingers, that palm on which he had lain so many kisses in the dark.

Well, now or never. “So, could I see them someday?”

“What?”

“Your wings. Could I see them? Or...” Dean frowned, thinking. “Or are they one of those things I can’t see because I’ll burst into flames?”

“You want to see them?” Cas sounded as though he couldn’t possibly have heard correctly.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I showed you just the shadows of them once and you were frightened. Which was my intention at the time, of course. But after we became friends I thought it best not to put on anymore displays of intimidation. I never thought you’d actually _want_ to see them.”

“Well, yeah, okay, you had me pretty freaked out back there in that barn, but I’m not exactly the same person I was back then.” He rolled over on to his other side, to look at Cas directly and fix the angel in one of his own laser-like stares. He’d gotten good at it. “ _Of course_ I’d like to see them if you’re willing to share. It’s _you_ I like, whether you look like a radio ad salesman or some four-headed fire dragon. Or both. Or neither!”  He put his arm around Cas then. “Though this form makes sharing a bed and various bed-related activities much easier and more fun.”

Cas laughed quietly. “Yes, I’d agree with that, now that I’ve finally figured out how to get this vessel to actually feel things through its own sensory system rather than channeling everything through my grace.” He smiled at the memory, a real smile, the sun reflecting off the surface of the sea. “ That was a fun learning curve.”

“Ha! Yes, it was.” Dean said. He turned serious again, for a moment. “But I meant what I said. If you feel like sharing, I feel like seeing. Okay? And if you don’t want to share, then that’s cool, too.”

“I—okay. Okay.” Cas looked at Dean for one moment more, an impossibly long moment that seemed to exist outside of time, because Dean could still feel it when Cas closed his eyes and laid his head back down. “Thank you. I do feel like sharing. Soon. But not right now—it’s late, and you really _do_ need to sleep.”

“Okay.” Dean said.  He felt a secret bubble of excitement, a frisson of anticipation that crackled through him suddenly at the thought. Cas had always existed in that sliver of space between what he desired and what he feared. That space had been growing ever-smaller for years and now was almost gone. He smiled. “Can’t wait.”

“Neither can I. Now get some sleep.”

Dean thought for sure that sleep would be impossible, now, but then Cas smiled again, another real smile, and held him closer, and Dean inhaled his scent, and heard his breathing , and sleep found him. He dreamed of wings.

**Author's Note:**

> PS, there's another version of this from Castiel's POV called [Between the shadow and the soul](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3969949).


End file.
